The Witchlord and the Weaponmaster

by Hugh Cook

  This was a blatant lie, since Guest was actually going to travel to Obooloo by way of the Doors of the Circle of the Partnership Banks; but the Weaponmaster had told his wife nothing of that Circle or those Doors, and did not intend to.

  "When will you be back?" said Penelope.

  "As soon as I can be," said Guest, speaking in perfect honesty.

  For, though her womb had proved barren, Guest was generally satisfied with his wife, and had no thought to abandon her on a permanent basis. Rather, he wished her to do what the wives of heroes have always done: to wait.

  "You'll be back?" said Penelope, seeking confirmation of the Weaponmaster's pledge.

  It would not be true to say that the purple-skinned Penelope was passionately in love with Guest Gulkan. Nevertheless, he had been tolerably civil and attentive to her during four long years which she had spent as a refugee in the tunnels of Cap Foz Para Lash, sheltering from the wrath of her home city, which had given itself to the madness of the religion known as Nu-chala-nuth.

  Indeed, Penelope would surely have fallen in love with Guest entirely, had she not already pledged her heart to another. That other was a valorous Ebrell Islander, Lupus Lon Oliver by name. To tell the truth, Penelope had once been married to the valorous Lupus, and had never gone through the formality of getting a divorce. The red-skinned Lupus Lon Oliver was currently in insurrection against the city of Dalar ken Halvar and the religion of Nu-chala-nuth. He was leading a wild life in Parengarenga's deserts, fighting with a band of doomed but undaunted revolutionaries led by a female of the Pang, a woman warrior named Shona.

  In the absence of Lupus Lon Oliver, her true love, Penelope had developed a strong affection for Guest Gulkan, hence sought his return.

  "I'll be back," confirmed Guest.

  "Then," said Penelope, "take this."

  And, with that, she took from her neck the bright-metal chain which she customarily wore, and passed the chain and its pendant to the Weaponmaster.

  "Thank you," said Guest, taking the chain and the amulet which served as its pendant.

  This object he had seen often enough, for Penelope wore it always, whether she was clothed or naked. He knew already that the pendant burnt with its own light, and was not surprised by this.

  But - the weight!

  The amulet was small enough for Guest to conceal in his fist, yet it was so uncommonly heavy that he wondered at its weight.

  Over the last four years, it had been so much a part of his everyday existence that he had ceased to notice it. But now he looked at it closely. The webbing and weaving of half a thousand filigree threads created the oval of the amulet. The wire of which this work had been fashioned appeared at first glance to be silver, but it was not, for it glistened with a shimmering light like the moon itself made liquid and mixed with mercury.

  "What is it?" said Guest.

  "It is luck," said Penelope.

  Then she kissed him.

  So Guest Gulkan departed from the minor mountain of Cap Foz Para Lash, taking with him a mazadath, an amulet of Nexus make.

  This mazadath - the pendant which Penelope had given to her Weaponmaster - had once been part of a dorgi. And the dorgi was a formidable brute of animated metal which had once guarded the tunnels inside Cap Foz Para Lash.

  (At any rate, this is what Paraban Senk told Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin, for that disembodied demon, on realizing that Penelope had given her amulet to the Weaponmaster, and that the amulet was about the depart from Cap Foz Para Lash, was loathe to see the thing go; and, speaking privily to Sken-Pitilkin, Senk requested that the wizard relieve the Weaponmaster of his burden. Something Sken-Pitilkin declined to do, for life was difficult enough already without gratuitously enhancing its difficulties by trying to steal a love-charm from a Yarglat barbarian).

  So it was that Guest Gulkan took his leave from his wife Penelope, exited from Cap Foz Para Lash, and made his way through the city of Dalar ken Halvar to the Bralsh - the building which housed the Door of Dalar ken Halvar's Door.

  According to their plans, Weaponmaster would unite with Witchlord on Alozay, then together they would venture to Obooloo to liberate the Great God Jocasta. By now, Guest was fired up with a great enthusiasm for his mission, and for the quest for the x-x- zix which would follow it.

  Witchlord and Weaponmaster would not be venturing alone, for the wizards Pelagius Zozimus and Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin would be daring the dangers with them, together with the knifeman Thayer Levant. The last-named, Levant, was undoubtedly sent by Plandruk

  Qinplaqus to spy on the others, but they did not resent such scrutiny, since a cheating of the Silver Emperor formed no part of their plans.

  Plandruk Qinplaqus came in person to the Bralsh to see them off.

  "One last thing," said Qinplaqus, once all their arrangements had been confirmed and reconfirmed for one last time.

  "What?" said Guest "Good luck," said Qinplaqus.

  That benediction meant a lot to Guest, and it warmed him mightily as he ventured through the Circle of the Partnership Banks, passing from Dalar ken Halvar to Tang, from Tang to Quilth, and then to Stokos, to Chi'ash-lan, and then to Alozay.

  On Alozay, the ruling island of the Safrak Islands, Guest Gulkan was greeted by his brother Morsh Bataar, who brought him dire tidings of disease.

  "Our father is ill," said Morsh.

  "Ill?" said Guest, in startlement.

  This was the last thing which Guest had expected!

  "You speak as if you doubt my word," said Morsh. "But it is true. As a horse has hair, so our father has an ailment. He cannot quest with you, not yet, for his doctors have pronounced him too sick to stir from his bed."

  "What's wrong with him, then?" said Guest.

  "He has a cold," said Morsh.

  "A cold!" said Guest, scandalized.

  They were heroes, were they not? Questing heroes! Truly heroic heroes, their deeds and avowals proportioned like the greatest of those of legend. How then could they be held up by a trifling matter like a cold?Guest demanded to be shown into the presence of his father, and found Lord Onosh laid up in bed with a bad headcold, which he was endeavoring to treat with a medicinal concoction compounded of lemons, hot water and something strongly alcoholic. As a consequence of the side-effects of the alcoholic component of this medicine, Lord Onosh had reached a stage of pronounced incoherence.

  This did not please the Weaponmaster at all, who in his anger was threatening to scalp the Witchlord when the Witch herself appeared. Bao Gahai hustled Guest out of the sickroom, interrogated him at length about all of his doings, then at last consented to leave him in peace.

  In the moody solitude of his disappointed brooding, Guest

  Gulkan took himself off to the Hall of Time. This was guarded by men with spears, and by solid doors which a blacksmith had closed with chains. Both the men and the doors resisted the Weaponmaster's will, but Guest at length succeeded in subduing the men and having the doors broken down.

  Then Guest Gulkan stalked into the Hall of Time, expecting to find it a place of dust and cobwebs. It was and it wasn't. True, there were cobwebs in plenty sprawled across the time prison pods.

  But there was precious little dust, for the open slit windows of the Hall of Time ventilated the place as a draughty cave is ventilated.Guest Gulkan came to a halt in front of the jade-green monolith known to him as Icaria Scaria Iva-Italis, demon of Safrak and Guardian Prime. At first, the demon did not consent to acknowledge his presence. But at last it spoke.

  "Greetings," said the demon.

  "And to you, greetings," said Guest.

  "You have come by a mazadath," said the demon. "Where did you win such a prize?"

  "A mazadath?" said Guest. "What's that?"

  "The thing which you have about your neck," said the demon.

  "This?" said Guest, lifting his heavyweight amulet from its concealment.

  "That," confirmed Italis. "Where did you get it?"

  "It was a present," said Guest. "A pre
sent from my wife."

  "So," said Iva-Italis. "So you are married. Have you children?"

  "Not yet," said Guest.

  "Your brother Morsh has children," said Iva-Italis.

  "Has he?" said Guest, most surprised at this intelligence; for nobody had even suggested to him that his brother Morsh had so much as a woman, far less a child.

  "He has," said Iva-Italis. "He has two sons, Yurt and Iragana."

  "So you say," said Guest. "But you have been locked in here for years, far beyond any breath of rumor. So how could you rightly claim to know such a thing?"

  "I am in communication with demons elsewhere," said Iva-Italis. "Have you not been told of this? I communicated, to name but one, with Koblathakatoria, he who is commonly known as Ko. You know him? Koblathakatoria is the demon of Chi'ash-lan. There is no scrap of gossip about Safrak which does not reach Chi'ash-lan, and usually sooner rather than later."

  "So," said Guest. "They spy on us."

  "The mere collection of gossip is scarcely a matter of espionage," said Iva-Italis. "Are your matings and breedings a matter of state secrecy? If they are, then all I can say is that you do not act in accordance with any such doctrine. It is a matter of public record that your brother Morsh Bataar maintains a wife on the island of Ema-Urk, and that she has given him two sons. Yurt is aged two, and Iragana is but one year of age."

  "This is news to me!" said Guest.

  "So," said Iva-Italis. "But I doubt that you have any news for me."

  "You didn't know about the - the maza," said Guest.

  "The mazadath," said Iva-Italis. "Maz-a-dath. No, I didn't know about that. But I take it to be a recent acquisition. The rest of your past I know. I have followed the saga of your recovery in the city of Dalar ken Halvar. I know, too, that you are now determined to venture to Obooloo."

  "They speak of this in Chi'ash-lan?" said Guest.

  "Of course they do," said Iva-Italis. "For Sod is held hostage in this very mainrock in which we now stand. Sod's brother rules in Chi'ash-lan, and fears that Sod will be murdered when your father's minions hear of your father's death."

  "My father is not dead!" said Guest. "He's got a cold, that's all!"

  "Yes," said Iva-Italis, "but soon you and your father will both be venturing to Obooloo. In Chi'ash-lan, they think both Witchlord and Weaponmaster will die in that venture, and that Sod will be murdered once the pair of you are dead."

  "And will we die?" said Guest.

  "That is for you to say, not me," said Iva-Italis. "Tell me how you are going to rescue the Great God Jocasta, and I will tell you whether you are likely to live."

  Then Guest told the demon of the plan which he had hatched with Sken-Pitilkin, drawing on Sken-Pitilkin's by-now-detailed knowledge of the various Doors of the Partnership Banks.

  The questing heroes would venture through the Circle of the Partnership Banks to the city of Obooloo. The Door in that city was housed in the Sanctuary of the Bondsman's Guild, a structure which stood atop a tall triangular rock known locally as Achaptipop, from which it was possible to overlook the Temple of Blood.

  By studious reconnaissance, Sken-Pitilkin had already determined the layout of the Temple of Blood. It was built around a central courtyard in which stood a Burning Pit into which human sacrifices were periodically cast.

  "From the Sanctuary of the Bondsman's Guild," said Guest, "we will overlook that Burning Pit. Sken-Pitilkin plans to improvise a flying ship. He will not build a full-scale stickbird. Rather, he will make a small device good enough for the descent from Achaptipop to the Burning Pit."

  "So," said Iva-Italis, "you will float downwards through the air, landing by the Burning Pit."

  "Precisely," said Guest. "But we're not sure how to find the Great God Jocasta."

  "That's easy," said Iva-Italis. "The great rock Achaptipop stands directly to the north of the Temple of Blood. The central courtyard in which you find the Burning Pit has four sides."

  "Most courtyards do," said Guest.

  "The sides are orientated to the north, south, east and west," said Iva-Italis, ignoring Guest entirely. "It is easy to orientate yourself. Once you land in the central courtyard, look for the great rock Achaptipop. It lies to your north."

  "And?" said Guest.

  "Where does Achaptipop lie?" said Iva-Italis.

  "To the north!" said Guest impatiently. "As I face that rock, the east will be to my right, and - "

  "Go east," said Iva-Italis.

  "East?" said Guest.

  "Yes," said Iva-Italis. "A single archway is set in the eastern side of the central chamber of the Temple of Blood. Go through that archway and you will find the Great God Jocasta."

  "What does the Great God look like?" said Guest.

  "The Great God," said Iva-Italis, "looks like a doughnut."

  "A doughnut?" said Guest, baffled by this description.

  "Take a single link from a chain," said Iva-Italis. "Beat that link into a circle, and there you have your doughnut. The wizard Pelagius Zozimus commonly bakes a kind of sweetened bread in just such a shape. Have you never eaten such?"

  "Ah!" said Guest, "now I understand!"

  "So," said Iva-Italis. "The Great God Jocasta is a doughnut, a doughnut about the size of your head. The Great God is trapped in a force field. Do you know what a force field is?"

  "Tell me," said Guest.

  "A force field," said Iva-Italis, "is a wall of light which is hard to penetrate."

  "Then how is Guest to penetrate this particular wall of light?" said Sken-Pitilkin.

  At which Guest almost jumped out of his skin, for the Weaponmaster had been so engrossed in his dialog with the demon that he had not heard the wizard of Skatzabratzumon enter the Hall of Time.

  "The Weaponmaster Guest can cleave through this particular wall of light by the mere application of his sword," said Iva-Italis.

  "Really?" said Sken-Pitilkin, sounding somewhat sceptical.

  "Yes," said Iva-Italis, "for these force fields are but poor and trivial devices. Once Guest has hacked the force field apart with his sword, the Great God Jocasta will be free. The Great God will then confer upon Guest the powers of a wizard, and will secure your exit from the Temple of Blood."

  "So you say," said Sken-Pitilkin, who still had reservations about this venture.

  "Rest assured," said Iva-Italis. "It is as I say. Besides, you will have a demon to help you."

  "You're coming with us?" said Sken-Pitilkin.

  "No!" said Iva-Italis. "For I am scarcely portable! But a demon stands in the Temple of Blood already. The demon stands beside the imprisoned Great God."

  "There's a demon which guards the Door of the Bondsmans Guild," said Sken-Pitilkin.

  "The demon Lob, yes," said Iva-Italis. "But that's not the demon of whom I'm speaking. There are two of my siblings in Obooloo. One is Lob, of whom you have spoken. The other is Ungular Scarth, who stands beside the Great God Jocasta."

  "Then why can't this Scarth claw away this force field?" said Sken-Pitilkin.

  "Because," said Iva-Italis, "a force field of the kind of which we are talking about can only be destroyed by the application of metal. Iron will do, or steel. Bronze. Tin.

  Whatever. But it must be metal!"

  "Then I will remember to leave my wooden sword at home," said Guest.

  "Do that," said Iva-Italis. "Go, now! Go! Do as you have vowed to do! Rescue the Great God! And you will be a wizard within the week!"

  "The week!" said Guest. "You too know of this business of weeks!"

  "It is true," said Iva-Italis, "for I am mighty in knowledge, and anything a wizard knows I know too. Go now! And do well!"

  So Guest and Sken-Pitilkin departed from the Hall of Time, paying no heed to the cobwebbed time pods which were set about its walls, and occupied themselves with preparations for their journey.Guest found the time to seek out his brother Morsh Bataar, and to question him about his alleged wife; and Morsh inspired Guest's jealousy by confessing that he h
ad indeed married one of the women of Ema-Urk, and that he had his own small sheep farm on that island, and had sired two sons.

  "I will likewise have sons," said Guest, "for my wife Penelope will bear them for me. Once I have the powers of a wizard, I am sure I will be able to overcome her barrenness."

  Comforted by this thought, the Weaponmaster occupied himself by choosing gear, and by climbing up and down the stairways of the mainrock Pinnacle to put a keen fighting edge on his fitness. And, once his father had recovered from his transitory illness, the questing heroes gathered together.

  Need the heroes be named?

  There was Witchlord and Weaponmaster; there was the servile Thayer Levant; and there were the wizards Pelagius Zozimus and Hostaja Sken-Pitilkin.Guest had wanted to bring with the wizard Ontario Nol, but Sken-Pitilkin had vetoed this.

  "If your demon is telling the truth," said Sken-Pitilkin,

  "then we have strength sufficient for our mission. And if your demon is lying, then the mere addition of another wizard will not help us if we have to fight the city of Obooloo as a whole."

  "Of course the demon's telling the truth!" said Guest. "It wants to have Jocasta liberated!"

  "Doubtless," said Sken-Pitilkin grimly. "But if the task were so simple, then one suspects it would have been performed long ago. Anyway, let us be going!"

  So the questing heroes passed through the Circle of the Partnership Banks to the city of Obooloo, where they enjoyed the hospitality of the Sanctuary of the Bondsmans Guild on the heights of the great rock Achaptipop.

  There Sken-Pitilkin improvised a kind of air-raft, a primitive flying device sufficient to sustain the weight of the heroes and moderate their descent from Achaptipop to the central courtyard of the Temple of Doom.

  When all was ready, the heroes gathered by the edge of Achaptipop, and, aided by Sken-Pitilkin's air-raft, they floated gently down to the central courtyard of the Temple of Blood. In the gloom of night, they located the archway on the courtyard's eastern flank. The arch opened onto a tunnel of uncommon darkness, a tunnel which could have doubled as part of the gut of a whale.

  The heroes drew their swords and ventured into that darkness.